The 2018 midterm election might be setting an unofficial record for demagogic statements and rhetoric.

One of them goes something like this: Democrats want to grant immediate citizenship to illegal aliens. Hmm. Really?

Here is what I understand is the talking point that Democrats are pitching and it has next to nothing to do with what their Republican foes keep saying about them.

They say they want to grant a “pathway to citizenship” to those who entered the United States illegally. Does that equate in any fashion to granting immediate citizenship? Not to me.

One of the most-watched Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate, Texan Beto O’Rourke, has been vilified as someone who favors “open borders,” one who says we have “too much border security” and someone who favors allowing illegal immigrants to vote.

Yes. I actually heard that last thing stated on a Fox News interview O’Rourke conducted with talking head Sean Hannity.

What I believe is the truth is that O’Rourke and other progressive candidates want is to grant a reprieve from deportation for illegal immigrants. Then he has suggested a form of screening of those immigrants, seeking to determine the reasons they are here. He and others want to allow them the chance to apply for citizenship or to seek permanent resident status.

Why, I must wonder, is that such a bad thing? Why is it preferable in the minds of many others to just round ’em up, keep ’em restrained and then deport ’em without giving them a chance to build new lives in the Land of Opportunity?

The xenophobe in chief keeps implying that every illegal immigrant is here to do harm. Yep, grandma and grandpa, along with their small grandchildren, as well as married couples have sneaked into our country to commit terrible, heinous, despicable crimes against unsuspecting Americans. That’s how the demagoguery goes.

It is untrue. It is a lie fomented by those with ghastly motives.

Do I favor “open borders”? Do I favor an absence of border security? Do I want to grant anyone permission to enter this country without the proper documentation? Of course not. Neither do politicians seeking election to important public offices.

None of that will stop the demagogues from continuing their campaign of lies.